I should get a chance to blog in more detail in time, but for now I just wanted to share a couple of nice clues I found in the light snow and ice I walked amongst.

The first photo shows the first snow I encountered on a climb out of the Vale of Ewyas. We are looking east in this picture, the only snow to have survived the thawing warmth of the day are the thin strips hiding in the shade on the south side of the path. This technique is analogous to the one using puddles on the south side of west-east tracks.

The sunlight can be seen lighting the hillside in the background and unsurprisingly there is little snow to be found there. It is only in the shadows that it survives on the lower slopes.

On reaching the ridge and the Offa’s Dyke Path, the snow and ice were a little more abundant. In the photos below, notice how there are lines in the ice, sculpted by the wind. These lines proved consistent over the local area.

It would have been churlish not to sample some of the local bumps whilst up there and I enjoyed a fantastic walk up to High Street (named after the Roman Road that went over the peak). The conditions changed almost instantly, as they are wont to do at this time of year, from mild and sunny to bitter cold, freezing fog and ferocious winds near the summit. The map came out to check the safe descents as visibility plummeted to about 25 metres at times but the compass stayed in the rucksack: the wind was blowing hard and very constantly from the southwest so I only needed to make sure that my right cheek stayed frozen to hold my southeasterly course down. There were also some helpful pockets of lee snow tucked into the hillsides.

In the photo above you can see how the ice has not formed symmetrically around this triangulation pillar: as we look just east of south there is no ice on the neareast northern side. This may seem counerintuitive as you might expect to find more ice on the shaded northern side, but the reason for the lack of snow on the northern side here is that this ice has been caused by moisture in the air that is near or just below freezing hitting the triangulation pillar which is below zero degrees and then freezing on impact. This is the same ‘rime ice’ effect that aircraft experience on their wings in these conditions. The sides facing into the wind will ice up and the lee sides, the northern and eastern sides in this case, will remain free of ice.

In the foreground of the first picture you can probably make out some indentations in the snow and ice. On first glance these impressions can look like footprints, but they are actually grooves and ‘tongues’ that have been carved and sculpted by the prevailing local winds.

In the the second photo, you can see that in this case they are giving a reliable indication of west/east.

In the book I explain how these tongues are used by indigenous Arctic people, like the Inuit, and how they come to know the different characters of the tongues and therefore which winds, and, critically, which wind directions have formed them.

The picture was taken looking northeast. The very perceptive will have noticed that there are molehills in the foreground and that they are in the shaded ground, very possibly not a coincidence. Something I touch on in my book. Oh you tease, you!